


When Stars Fall and Cats Cry

by AtypicalOwl



Series: The Butterflies!Verse [3]
Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Feels, Fluff, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Offscreen character death, brief mention of suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 03:33:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3635052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtypicalOwl/pseuds/AtypicalOwl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life was good for Bartholomeow Whiskers von Reynolds. He had a warm house, a family that fed him and bought him catnip toys, and a can of mooshy food every day. Yeah, sure, sometimes the littlest human could be a pest, but Barty could forgive her. Sadie was still a kitten — young, boisterous, and full of wonder at the world.</p><p>Of course, perfection cannot last, and after the day Sadie came up to him and spoke to him in the Speech for the first time, Barty's life would never be the same again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Stars Fall and Cats Cry

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel/companion piece to [What The Butterflies Said](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2698055). If you haven't already read it, I highly suggest doing so before reading this work.
> 
> Beware: There are feels ahead.

The window was far from the best spot for _hauissh,_ but the window seat was padded, and it was right next to an air vent, so when the heat kicked on during a cold and rainy day like today, Bartholomeow was quite satisfied with his position relative to the poor sods sitting out in the damp and cold for the sake of a better line of sight.

Besides, he had never cared much for petty territory games. Why bother fighting over who gets claim of the spot next to the mailbox? Without even trying, he had a warm house, a family that fed him and bought him catnip toys, and a can of mooshy food every day. Yeah, sure, sometimes the littlest human could be a pest, but Barty could forgive her. Sadie was still a kitten — young, boisterous, full of wonder at the world — and anyway, her parents were quickly teaching her to leave him alone.

Yes, life was good for Bartholomeow Whiskers von Reynolds. Yes, someday he was going to have to shed on Daniel’s favorite suit for giving him that name. However, it wasn’t a high priority, and other than that, he was content. His territory was pretty darned nice the way it was.

Still, sometimes it amused him to perch in a window and join the game. There was a tabby under the bush across the street, shivering a bit in the rain, while a calico perched smugly under the roof of the neighbor’s gazebo, sacrificing a little visibility for the sake of staying dry. He nodded to the calico and received a nod in reply. Solidarity in avoidance of humidity. Now that was an aspect of _hauissh_ he could get behind.

Oh, and there went Mrrhae, strutting down the street, tail held high, looking utterly unbothered by the rain. A tingle of anxiety ran down Barty’s back, making his fur puff up, just a bit. If you looked closely enough, you could see that Mrrhae wasn’t actually getting wet, despite the steady drizzle.

Barty snorted. _Wizards,_ he thought. _No time for that ‘getting wet’ business that the rest of us have to deal with._ Mrrhae and his ilk tended to rub Barty the wrong way, like Sadie's attempts to pet him from tail to head.

He knew, in an abstract sense, that wizards worked to make the world a better place (ahem, sorry, they worked for _the Universe,_ they were very clear about that distinction). He just thought that the lot of them could use an attitude adjustment, perhaps through application of a paw to the side of the head, at velocity.

It wasn’t that Barty had anything against wizards - it just seemed that _they_ had something against _him_. The memory of his last encounter with a wizard made Barty itch. He bristled, and tried not to scratch, as he watched Mrrhae turn the corner down the block and vanish from sight. Once the wizard was gone, he gave in, and scratched until the itch of anxiety went away, then started licking his paw, fighting the sick feeling that had settled in his gut at the memory.

He had only been trying to be nice. A new family had moved in down the block, and they had cats, so of course the entire neighborhood contingent of felines had snuck out of their respective homes to greet them. It was just a small, informal gathering, in the new family’s backyard. Barty had been to a number of them over the years - you put in an appearance, get introductions out of the way, make small talk for a while, then go home and go about your life.

But the new family had two _wizard_ cats, which he didn’t realize until he got there and his fur started standing on end from the damnable _tingle_ all wizards seemed to carry around with them. Still, he introduced himself to Mrrhae the grey tabby and S'rissa the calico, ignoring the odd look in their eyes as they greeted him in turn.

He made polite conversation for a while, pretending he didn’t notice the way S'rissa stiffened whenever he spoke, and Mrrhae kept staring at him when he thought Barty couldn't see. When another cat from a few houses down asked them about their wizardly adventures, both of their eyes flicked to him momentarily, and they hesitated before speaking.

It was at about that point that Barty made some excuse about his humans noticing he was gone and ducked out. Why bother staying somewhere he obviously wasn’t welcome? Since then, they were polite enough to him, but they always had this aloof, holier-than-thou attitude when they interacted with Barty. So, he left them alone.

Barty wasn’t sure what their problem with him was, but he figured that as long as their Business stayed their business, and they kept it out of his business, they could coexist peacefully.

He just hoped they would see it that way.

 

***

 

Barty laid on the patio, basking in what he thought was the most perfect sunbeam he had ever felt.

Somewhere in the background, he heard Maggie and Daniel discussing if it was okay for him to be outside, especially this early in spring, and would he run off if they had a surprise storm or something startled him? He didn’t pay it much mind. He wasn’t inclined to go anywhere, except maybe inside once it got dark. After the rain, it was wonderful to catch a few rays.

Of course, Barty should have known that perfection could not last, because his glorious afternoon of sun-basking was interrupted by small, clumsy footsteps. He opened one eye to see Sadie crouched in front of him, and thought, _oh boy, here we go again._

“Hi Barty, how are you?” she said, and he heard not the strange sounds of babbled young human speech, but perfectly clear Ailurin.

That startled him so much that his tail puffed up to more than the size of his head, and he darted through the half-open screen door, down the hall, and didn’t stop running until he was safely under the big bed in the big bedroom.

He was used to Sadie chattering mostly incoherently in his direction. He considered himself passably fluent in human speech, but her young babble wasn’t nearly as understandable as the clear enunciation of older humans. To have her come up and speak in clear Ailurin was the largest shock he’d had since he woke up after a vet visit to discover that some very important pieces of himself were missing.

It took nearly an hour for Barty to collect himself enough that his tail wasn’t threatening to consume the rest of his body. He scooted out from under the bed, sneezed out a few dust bunnies, and washed himself for a few minutes, smoothing out his ruffled fur and the last bit of puffiness from his tail. He sneezed again, and spent another five minutes washing dust off his face. _Stupid squashed nose,_ he grumbled, trying to get a particularly itchy patch clear.

Once he felt like he wasn’t going to get dusted to death, he made to exit the room, only to come across Sadie sitting near the door.

“Sorry I scared you,” she said, in the sort of wobbly guilty-sincere tone that only the very young of any species can muster, and still in perfect Ailurin.

“How are you doing that?” Barty asked.

“Doing what?”

“That! Talking!”

Sadie tilted her head to the side and looked at him curiously. “Mommy says I started talking when I was really little. She says my first word was ‘star’.”

“No! I mean talking Ailurin!”

“What’s Ai-loo-ran?”

“Cat language! What you’re speaking right now!”

“I’m not talking cat, I’m talking in the Speech. I learned it.”

“How?!?”

“From a book, of course.”

She said it so matter-of-factly that Barty could only roll his eyes and mutter, “A book, of course, what else would it have been?”

“I dunno, maybe like the time Mommy tried learning Spanish on her iPad?”

“It was a rhetorical— oh, never mind.” Barty shook out his fur and made a few halfhearted attempts to smooth out his tail.

“Are you okay, Barty?” Sadie asked.

“Just surprised,” he said, giving his tail one last lick. “Didn’t know you could just get a library book on the Speech these days.”

“Oh, you can’t,” Sadie said breezily, “you only get one if you’re a wizard.”

POOF, went Barty’s tail, undoing all of his careful smoothing.

“Oh,” he said, and promptly turned around to hide under the bed again.

 

***

 

It wasn’t hard to slip out that night, after Maggie and Daniel and Sadie were asleep. The bathroom window had never closed right. Daniel was always promising to fix it, but never did, so Barty pawed it open wide enough to slip through and jumped down into the cool grass.

He wandered the neighborhood for a while, looking for one of those blasted wizard cats. Not used to being outside under the cover of dark, his hackles raised at every sound, unsure if it was the wind rustling or a stray dog preparing to attack him.

Finally, he caught a familiar scent, and followed it down the block, where he found Mrrhae and S'rissa quietly conferring under a bush.

They both fell quiet when they saw him approach, and they tensed, as if to run. Barty pushed away the feeling of rejection like he always did, and stopped a few feet from the bush.

“What are you doing out tonight, Brrthei?” Mrrhae asked.

“Looking for you,” Barty replied simply. The other cats’ eyes widened, and he hastened to elaborate. “Look, I don’t know why you guys don’t like me, and the feeling’s mutual, but you’re wizards,” the human term caught on his tongue a bit, “and my human family's kid just found wizardry. So please, can we just put all of our business to one side for a minute? I’m worried about her, and I’d really rather put her above whatever our problem is.”

The cats exchanged a look. Barty wondered if they were talking silently, the way Sadie had said some wizards could.

“How old is she?” S'rissa finally asked, turning back to Barty, her tone gentler than he had ever heard from her.

“She’s four, almost five. She’s barely a k-kitten.” Barty choked on the word. “She’s too young for this, it has to be a mistake. Whatever Powers you lot work for, they can’t ask this of her!”

“Four? That’s old enough, easily. On the late side, even,” Mrrhae said dismissively.

S'rissa raised a paw and socked his ear. “Their latency/lifespan ratio is bigger, you wilted piece of catgrass. You spend far too much time tangled in your strings and not enough time out here with all the different kinds of Life.” She turned back to Barty. “Please forgive him, he doesn’t get out much.”

“I get out plenty,” Mrrhae said, rubbing his ear. “Whatever, so I don’t remember the latency ratio of every sapient species everywhere. Bite me.”

S'rissa did.

Barty winced. He had never realized wizards were so _violent._

“Brrthei’s right,” S'rissa said, spitting out a bit of Mrrhae's fur. “That is unusually young for one to acquire wizardry.”

“How’s she get it, the Whispering?” Mrrhae asked, still wincing.

Barty gave him a blank look.

“What he means is, how did she acquire the Knowledge?” S'rissa clarified. “Some humans get it purely mentally, others have a physical manifestation of the information.”

“Um, a book,” Barty said. “It just looked like a kid’s library book to me, some fantasy story, but she swears up and down it’s got spell diagrams and lessons in the Speech in it. Plus, there’s the very compelling evidence that we have had conversations about this and understand each other perfectly.”

“We don’t doubt you,” S'rissa said.

“It’s just really weird that she’d get it that early,” Mrrhae added. “She ought to be like, twice that age, at minimum. There must be some serious _hiouh_ going on somewhere in the Univ- OW!”

S'rissa lowered her paw. “Language, Mrrhae! We pulled you out of the pound two years ago, you ought to be more mature by now!”

Barty was starting to get impatient with their back and forth. “Look, this can’t be right. Sadie’s way too young to be a wizard! What kind of sick joke is it, forcing a little kitten into this?”

S'rissa and Mrrhae exchanged another look. “She wasn’t forced,” Mrrhae said, his tone softer than before. “It’s… You get a choice. You get it all laid out in front of you: here’s what’s going on in the Universe, here’s your chance to do something about it, it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be scary, and it’s going to hurt. Do you still want to do it? And we’ve said yes, me, S'rissa, Sadie, we all said ‘yes, we want to help, give us the power to make a difference.’”

“Wizardry does not live in the unwilling heart,” S'rissa said sadly, her voice choking on the words a bit. “To force it on someone would be the antithesis of all we fight for. It is each individual’s decision.”

“But she’s not old enough to understand the repercussions of that decision!” Barty protested.

“If she was offered wizardry, then Someone thought she could handle it,” Mrrhae snapped, and Barty wondered if pronouncing a capital letter like that was a wizardly skill.

“That Someone is an idiot, then!” Barty snapped back, and no, it turned out a run-of-the-mill cat could do the capital letter just fine.

S'rissa stood and planted herself between the two riled cats. “Look, we can argue about the situational ethics of this all day, but it won’t change that your Sadie is learning the Art, and short of her voluntarily giving it up,” S'rissa's voice cracked a bit, “there is nothing we can do to change that.”

Barty took a deep breath, counted to five, and gave his tail a quick bath for composure. Past S'rissa, he could see Mrrhae doing the same thing. “Okay.” Barty took another deep breath. “Okay. I still don’t agree with it, but I can accept that that’s the way things are, for now. What next?”

“What do you mean?” Mrrhae asked.

“What happens next? Does Sadie just go off into the sunset, saving the Universe? Her mom and dad would notice if she did that, you know, or heck, if she just started, I don’t know, _talking to the cat in front of them._ What happens now?”

“How long ago did she obtain the book, do you know?” S'rissa asked.

“A week or so, I think is what she said? She’s damn good with the Speech already, though.”

“Has she been gone for any extended period of time?”

Barty thought for a minute. “I don’t think so. I mean, if I’m not around her, she’s with her parents, and they’d freak out if she vanished.”

“Then she most likely hasn’t had her Ordeal yet.”

Barty heard the capital letter on that word too. “That sounds ominous.”

“Her Ordeal would be the reason she was offered wizardry in the first place,” Mrrhae said. “Some problem that the Powers That Be looked at and said ‘whoops, this one looks gnarly, better give that Sadie kid a manual and throw her at it.’” Mrrhae ducked, and S'rissa’s strike missed his head. “Hah, I was too quick for you!”

He was not too quick for Barty to swat him from the other side. “She is not a dart to play bullseye with! She is not a, an abstract solution to be thrown at a problem! She’s a kid! She is Sadie, she’s four, and she wanted to be an astronaut ballerina and now she’s being recruited by those _sswiass_ Powers for who knows what, and _don’t you dare hit me S'rissa I think I am entitled to a little bad language in this situation.”_

S'rissa sheepishly lowered her paw. “Sorry, habit.”

Mrrhae snickered.

S'rissa absently swatted him.

“She’s four,” Barty said again. “She’s so young; what if something happens to her? She’s not ready for this.” He stared at the ground for a while. “I just want her to be safe. How can I help her?”

“Keep talking to her,” S'rissa said. “Help her practice, help her prepare. There ought to be listings in her book for other human wizards; you could get her to talk to them. They can help too. Just be there for her. Humans are still _sevarfrith,_ they don’t publicly share the existence of wizardry, so her support system consists entirely of you and any other wizards you can find.”

“What about you?” Barty said, looking back up and staring Mrrhae in the eyes. “You’re wizards, come talk to her!”

Mrrhae shifted uncomfortably, looking away. “Sorry Brrthei, we actually just got called off-planet.”

Barty’s mouth hung open. “Did you say off-planet? IS SADIE GOING TO HAVE TO GO TO ANOTHER PLANET?”

S'rissa shrugged. “No one knows what an Ordeal will be, but Mrrhae’s right, we do need to be going. There’s a situation with the worldgates on a planet a few galaxies over, and we’ve been called to deal with it.”

Barty huffed, but nodded. “Yeah, go deal with your rusty gate or whatever. I’m going to go sleep on top of Sadie and make sure she doesn’t run off to Jupiter in the night.”

“Brrthei, we will be back in a few days if you want to talk.”

“Thanks, S'rissa. Good luck out there.”

 

***

 

It was not how Barty pictured having a conversation with Sadie, sprawled on his side on the carpet with her mirroring his pose, faces so close they were nearly nose to nose – which was an impressive feat, given the state of his ridiculous squashed face. (Someday, he was going to have to ask Sadie to pass a message on to those Powers of hers, asking Whose ridiculous idea it was to make cats with flat faces and noses that didn’t quite work right. He had a few choice words for Them, and he could always say them in Ailurin so Sadie wouldn’t get in trouble with her parents for saying bad words.)

Idle musings on the cruel pranks of evolution aside, Barty was glad for the chance to talk with Sadie again about wizardry, and with the potential for Maggie and Daniel to notice, nonetheless.

“I’m just worried for you, Sadie,” Barty said. “Being a wizard is a lot of responsibility.”

“You’re a worrywart, Barty,” Sadie replied, breezily.

“Yes, yes I am! Unashamedly worried! Because this is worth worrying about!”

“Come on, Barty, I’ve got wizardry. What can happen that I can't just throw a spell at?”

Barty snorted. “I can imagine quite a few things, none of them good!” He sighed. “Look, Sadie, I had a talk with some of the cats on the block, they’re wizards too, maybe they could give you advice? Help teach you? Or you could track down a human wizard? They said they could use that book of yours to do that.”

“Why?” Sadie asked. “I’m doing fine on my own.” And there was no pride or false bravado in her voice, just the solid conviction of a child who has been handed a magic wand and a spellbook and told she can save the Universe from itself.

“Yeah, but maybe there’s stuff they know that could help you, or they could teach you tricks to help with your Ordeal. Remember that? The thing that still hasn’t happened to you? The big test that determines if you get to stay a wizard or not?”

“Yeah, what about it Barty?” Sadie shrugged. “I’m not scared, wizardry is fun, and so is talking to stuff that I didn't know could talk.”

“Sadie, do you even _know_ any spells yet?” Barty winced a bit at the s-word. It still made him a little uncomfortable to think of this little kitten throwing power around like that, even if he was getting used to her particular tingly aura of wizardry.

“Sure! There’s, um…” Sadie trailed off. “Oh, there’s my nightlight one! I showed you, remember, with my wand?” She held up the twig she had picked up in the backyard. “The book says it will work better if I get an oak one, like Natalie’s, but this one works for now.”

Barty tried not to roll his eyes. “That’s wonderful, Sadie.”

She completely missed the sarcasm in his voice. “I know, isn’t it?”

The soft click of a cameraphone shutter sound interrupted Barty’s reply. He glanced up, and out of the corner of his eye, saw Maggie pointing her phone at the two of them. He took the opportunity to call “Please, talk some sense into this girl!” But Maggie heard only meows, and she smiled at the pair of them, and tapping at a few things on her phone’s screen, left the room.

“Sadie! Please, will you talk to a more experienced wizard about things? For me?” Barty tried to steal a trick from Sadie’s book and made his eyes as big and adorable as he could, holding in mind the image of the cat from that Shrek movie who had pulled off a similar trick. It didn’t seem to work.

“Barty, I’m fine!”

“Sadie, you’re just a little kid! Don’t you think that it could help if you talked to someone who’s been doing wizardry for longer?”

Sadie snorted. “Natalie and Kyle were just kids and they did fine too.”

Barty sighed. “You keep talking about Natalie and Kyle. Who even are they?”

Sadie’s eyes got big. “OH NO! I never told you? Barty I have to tell you the story! Stay right there!” Sadie sprung up and dashed into the other room, then came back clutching the wizard book that had started everything. “Natalie and Kyle’s story is how I learned about wizardry! They saved the world!”

Sadie read him the story, which was about Natalie and Kyle finding wizardry and stopping shadow monsters. Barty was patient throughout it, letting Sadie show him the illustrations and not reacting when Maggie poked her head in again to take more pictures.

When Sadie reached ‘The End,’ she looked over at him expectantly.

“Good story,” he said. “But weren’t Natalie and Kyle at least twice your age when they got wizardry and fought shadow monsters?”

Sadie snapped the book shut. “You just can’t appreciate good storytelling, Barty,” she said, and stormed off to her room.

Barty sighed.

 

***

 

It was almost two weeks before Barty saw Mrrhae and S’rissa again. He didn’t actively seek them out; they popped up just outside the bathroom window he was sitting in.

Literally, they popped out of nowhere, with a soft noise of displaced air. It startled him so much he nearly tumbled backwards into the bathtub, scrabbling for balance and only gaining it at the last minute.

“Hi Brrthei!” Mrrhae said cheerfully, either completely oblivious to Barty’s reaction or choosing to ignore it.

“Sorry we startled you,” S’rissa said, ever the politer one.

“S’okay,” Barty mumbled, not even bothering to look at what a state his tail must have poofed itself into.

“So didja get the squirt to talk to a grownup wizard?” Mrrhae asked, all in a rush.

S’rissa swatted him, halfheartedly. “Don’t mind him, he’s always a little buzzed after a successful intervention.”

“Well, I tried, but she seems to think she doesn’t need help from anyone.” Barty sighed. “I would ask you to talk to her now that you’re back, but she’s not even here right now, she’s at some friend’s house while Maggie and Daniel are at a movie.”

“Mm, that’s bad timing indeed,” S’rissa agreed.

“I’m just so worried about her,” Barty wheezed. He didn’t have to put on a brave face for Sadie, so he let some of the distress show.

“Hey, you okay there?” Mrrhae asked.

“Fine, just this stupid nose and stupid spring allergies and stupid crying over my stupid wizard kid,” Barty said.

S’rissa and Mrrhae glanced at each other. Barty was becoming convinced they were talking behind his back, in front of him, when they did that.

“I could maybe help with that a little?” S’rissa offered. “I know some medical spells that could ease your brachycephaly symptoms a bit.”

Barty stared at her blankly.

“She can make your silly looking nose work better and make it easier to breathe,” Mrrhae translated. “C’mon S’rissa, not everyone is a med-wizard.” He raised a paw to playfully slap her.

S’rissa intercepted the slap and delivered one of her own.

While the two were engaged in their slapfight, Barty had a fight of his own with anxiety. It _would_ be nice to be able to breathe more easily, but the thought of S’rissa working a spell on him scared him for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate.

“What, um,” he swallowed around the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat, “what exactly would you do? What am I getting myself into if I say yes?”

“Well, I would do a simple diagnostic spell to see what exactly is making you wheeze,” S’rissa said. “I mean, obviously some of it is anxiety over your wiz-kitten, but it could be an elongated soft palate blocking your airway, or everted laryngeal saccules, or it could just be simple stenotic nares… Ow! That hurt!”

“There is nothing simple about stenotic nares,” Mrrhae growled, withdrawing his paw. “And if you think that hurt, try being me, getting that from you all the time!” Mrrhae turned to Barty. “Basically, she’ll scan you, figure out what’s wrong, I’ll bully her into using small words, and you decide if you wanna get it fixed by her or the vet. Honestly, I vote her. She smells better than a vet’s office. Not by much though. Ow!”

Barty still felt reluctant, though he couldn’t pinpoint why. Between Sadie and them, he knew that wizards were forces for Good, and S’rissa only wanted to help, but there was still a vague anxiety in the pit of his stomach over the prospect of being at the center of a spell.

Still… There couldn’t be harm in just a scan, right? He trusted S'rissa to not do anything he didn't want her to do. She would just tell him what part of him wasn’t working right. Nothing more than that.

“Sure, scan away. Want me to come down there?”

“Nah,” S’rissa said, “I can do it from here.”

Barty wasn’t entirely sure what S’rissa did, but silence fell around them, the tingle of wizardry around her grew to an itchy fizz, and her feet started glowing, and then _his_ feet started glowing, and S’rissa hissed at him to _hold still so I can get a look in your face,_ and then his _face_ was glowing and, wow, that was a weird sensation, and the whole time he was trying not to buzz out of his skin at the sensation of S’rissa’s wizardry wrapping around him and inside his nose…

And then it was over, and the sensations retreated, and Barty took a few gasping breaths, realizing he was holding his breath the whole time she was checking him over.

“Breathe, Brrthei, just breathe,” Mrrhae said. “It’s okay, it’s over, S’rissa’s just gotta translate it into words you’ve heard of. It’s all good.”

Barty didn’t stop to wonder why Mrrhae was being so nice, he just focused on sucking precious air into his lungs. When he felt like he wasn’t going to pass out, he nodded at S’rissa.

“Looks like you do just have an elongated soft palate. Is it easier to breathe through your mouth than nose?”

Barty nodded.

“Yeah, the roof of your mouth is just a little too big, so it blocks the air through your nose. So, if the vet were to fix it, they would just trim a little off the back of it.”

Barty winced. Having someone poke around the back of his throat with a sharp object didn’t sound fun.

S’rissa saw his wince. “If I did it, I would basically talk the roof of your mouth into a slightly different shape. It wouldn’t remove anything, it would just make it a little thicker in the middle and move that extra tissue up from the back. No vets, no knives, no waking up with a cone on your head and knocking over your water dish and taking two days to dry off properly.”

Barty shivered at the half-remembered dampness, but he remembered his manners. “Thank you, S’rissa, I might ask you to do that sometime in the future if it gets worse.”

S’rissa shrugged. “Suit yourself. You know where we live. Holler if you need us, for Sadie or for your palate.”

“Later, squish-face,” Mrrhae said, and popped himself out of existence before S’rissa could swat him. She sighed at the space he was previously occupying, shook her head, and then vanished as well.

Barty stared out the window for a few more moments, then sighed and jumped down. Maybe he could hide under Sadie’s bed until she got home. Maybe by then his tail would have calmed down, too.

Maybe by then he would have figured out just howS’rissa knew about the cone and the water dish, given that incident had happened a good seven years ago, and she and Mrrhae had only moved in during the past year…

 

***

 

Spring turned to summer without incident, and Barty allowed himself to relax a bit, despite his anxieties. Sadie was progressing with the Speech at an amazing rate, to where she seemed more fluent in it than English. Actual spells were coming at a slower rate; Sadie seemed to mostly tell the Universe the way she wanted it to be and then used all of her youthful energy to simply _push_ it into being that way.

Sadie was strong enough that it worked every time. Mrrhae had said something about young wizards being more powerful, and it was definitely holding true.

Plus, he privately suspected that there was not a Power in the Universe that could deny Sadie anything if she turned her big green eyes on Them and pouted. It certainly worked on her parents, which was why Maggie and Sadie were currently planting more flowers in an already crowded garden for no reason other than Sadie had asked nicely.

Barty was lying on the deck, watching them have fun in the dirt, when a butterfly with a wingspan bigger than his head flew up to his face and landed on his nose. Maybe it said something in the Speech, maybe it didn’t. All Barty knew was that it tickled, and he sneezed, sending the insect on its way with a great flutter.

“Oh Barty, be nice to the butterflies!” Sadie said from her spot in the garden.

Barty sneezed again.

 

***

 

After they got cleaned up from planting in the garden, Sadie headed to her room to read her book, and Barty followed. She settled down in her big beanbag chair, and Barty hopped up beside her and curled up, resting his head on her leg.

“Did I show you my new wand yet?” Sadie asked. When Barty replied in the negative, she reached over to the bookshelf and held it out to Barty. He sniffed it politely and nodded at it. It was still just a stick, but this stick had been stripped of its bark, presumably to keep her from getting splinters. “Nice,” he said, unsure of how else to compliment it.

“It’s made of oak, like Natalie’s! When we went to the park, I asked a tree if I could have it, and she said yes, and then Mommy helped me smooth it out!” She waved the wand around a bit. “It’s going to help with my spells, because it can focus energy! Watch this!” Sadie closed her eyes and said something under her breath, and the stick started glowing brightly enough that they both looked away. “A lot better than some silly nightlight, huh? Shadow monsters better watch out when I’m around!”

Sadie let the stick fade back into plain wood, then she leaned back on the beanbag chair with a sigh. “If I ever _get_ to fight shadow monsters, that is.”

Barty decided to try a different tactic. “Hey, didn’t Natalie and Kyle spend a while learning about wizardry first?”

“Yeah, but then they got to actually _use_ it.”

“Well, you know Sadie, when you read about them in a book, you don’t see all the time they spent preparing. The writer skips to the good parts, so you don’t have to read through every endless afternoon that they were just reading their wizard books. You’re just still in the part they skipped over!” Barty uncurled a bit and stretched. “Besides, didn’t they talk with an older wizard too, when they needed advice? Maybe you ought to do that. They could tell you where shadow monsters are likely to hang out.”

Sadie was quiet for a while, thinking about it. Barty snuggled up to her and started purring. He had nearly drifted off to sleep when she spoke again. “I want to meet Natalie and Kyle.”

Barty started awake. “Huh?”

“Natalie and Kyle. I want it to be them. Do you think they’re in the book?”

Barty blinked slowly, not completely awake. “Um, the book is about them, right?”

“Yeah! So there ought to be a way to talk to them! I just have to find the right page! Thanks, Barty!”

Barty dropped his head back down to the beanbag. Why wouldn’t the kid just talk to a grown-up before she ran off to fight shadow monsters?

 

***

 

Barty watched Sadie float down from the top of the bookcase, considerably less freaked out than the first time she had climbed up there and launched herself into the air. “Very impressive,” he said, and meant it. “But what if someone sees you do that?”

“So? People see stuff all the time, they just don’t _see_ _see_ it.” Sadie landed neatly on her carpet, then giggled and skipped over to the bookcase to climb it again.

 _I wonder if it would be_ better _if someone saw,_ Barty thought. _Then maybe they could put a stop to this nonsense, and keep her safe…_

He said none of that out loud. “How’s it work, anyway?” he asked, instead.

“I just asked gravity to be a little less for me, that’s all,” Sadie said, floating down again.

“Of course, very simple,” Barty said, flatly.

“I could have talked the air into being thicker, but that makes it harder to breathe. Gravity was the easier way!”

“I see.” Barty didn’t. He moaned and flopped on Sadie’s beanbag. What was the world coming to when politely asking gravity to Just Not Do Its Thing was the easiest solution to a problem?

“Plus, I wrote a spell about it, and I have it in the book now, so I can pull it out whenever I want to without having to remember it!”

Barty lifted his head out of the beanbag and glanced at Sadie. “You’re getting better at spells these days,” he observed. “I’m proud of you, kid, even if you scare the catnip out of me when you do that.”

Sadie grinned brightly at him from her perch atop the bookcase, and took another step out into thin air.

Barty buried his head in the beanbag again.

 

***

 

The sound of crying from Sadie’s room drew Barty to investigate. Before Sadie became a wizard, he would have walked straight past to the quiet of Maggie and Daniel’s room, but tonight, he nosed open her door and went in.

She was curled on her bed, a small lump of sniffles and tears under her pony-covered comforter.

“Sadie?” Barty said softly. “Are you alright?”

“Barty,” she croaked, and the pain in her voice was enough to sweep any longing thoughts of Maggie’s electric blanket from his mind.

He jumped up on her bed and padded over to where he estimated her head was, based on the sound of the sniffles. “Hey Sadie, what’s going on?”

She poked her head out of the covers and looked at him, the blue glow of her nightlight giving a ghastly pale shade to her face. “I’m scared, Barty.”

Barty leaned in and bumped his forehead against hers. “Hey, I’m here. It’s okay.”

Sadie closed her eyes and leaned in to the touch a bit. “I don’t think it is, Barty,” she said softly.

“Aw, Sadie,” Barty said. He rubbed her cheek with his, then burrowed under the covers next to her. When he got comfortable, Sadie put an arm around him, and he leaned into her and started purring. There was a lump in his throat he couldn’t quite swallow, and he hoped Sadie wouldn’t notice how shaky the purr was. “What’s going on? Why’s my favorite wiz-kid so down tonight?”

“Remember when they were talking about the sun on the TV?” Sadie mumbled into Barty’s fur.

“During that movie with the toys, right? Didn’t they said it’s acting up, and they don’t know why?”

Sadie nodded.

A sinking feeling in Barty’s stomach made him regret the extra helping of kibble he had weaseled out of Daniel. “And you do.” It wasn’t a question.

Sadie nodded again. “It’s in the book, Barty. Something’s eating stars. The Sun is scared of it, and it keeps lashing out because it’s so scared.” She let go of Barty momentarily to pull the covers over the both of them, blocking out the nightlight’s comforting glow. “Barty, I think I have to be the one to save the stars.”

Barty couldn’t help it, he growled. “Sadie, no. No! You don’t have to do it yourself! There are other wizards, ask them for help! Heck, those cats I’ve been talking to on the block, I’ll talk to them tomorrow and-”

“No, Barty.”

“Or tell your parents first, they can help—”

“Barty they don’t believe me—”

“Sadie, you don’t have to do it alone, I’ll go with you—”

“Barty, no,” Sadie said softly, but firmly, a determination in her young, quivering voice that wasn’t there before. “I think I’m the only one who can do this.”

“Sadie, you’re just a kitten!”

“I’m a wizard! There’s people out there hurting because their stars are going out! I have to help! And if I don’t help, I can’t call myself a wizard any more. They won’t let me.”

Poof, went Barty’s tail, as images of Sadie standing on distant worlds or flying into foreign suns filled his mind.

And yet… Somehow, the thought of Sadie losing her wizardry but being safe at home was not any more comforting of an option. In fact, it made a cold ache settle in his heart. “Sadie, can you promise me one thing?” he asked.

“No,” Sadie said, and his tail poofed more, “not without knowing what I’m promising.”

“Don’t do anything tonight? Sleep on it? Please?”

Sadie made a small, pained noise.

“It will be really hard to save the world without a good night’s sleep,” Barty said.

“Fine.” And Sadie’s tone was so petulant, so familiar, so _young_ , that it made Barty’s heart ache.

Barty wasn’t sure when he had stopped purring, but he started again, leaning into Sadie and lending her all the support and comfort that a single, slightly wheezy cat could to a human roughly twice his size.

“Stay wit’ me tonight?” Sadie said, yawning a bit.

“Sure, Sadie. I ain’t going anywhere.”

They slept like that, curled together under the covers, until the morning light of a sun neither of them quite trusted was shining through the window.

 

***

 

They woke up, and had breakfast together, Barty hopping on to the table after he finished his kibble and sitting next to Sadie's bowl of cereal. If Maggie and Daniel thought it was odd that cat and child seemed closer than usual, they said nothing.

That afternoon, Daniel took Sadie to the library, hoping to get more books to take her mind off the stars. Barty said “bye Sadie, love you” and licked her cheek, and she giggled and kissed his head. Daniel followed Sadie into the garage to get her buckled into her carseat, and Barty followed Maggie into the living room to curl up next to her while she played some game on her phone.

An hour and a half passed in quiet contentment, then Maggie looked up at the clock, and said “Barty, where are they? It shouldn’t take that long to go to the library.”

All the laziness drained out of Barty’s spine, and his tail poofed, just slightly.

“I had better call them and find out what’s going on.”

Barty meowed softly. _No, please no._

“You think so too, huh? Okay, fine, if the cat thinks so too…” Maggie poked a few things on her phone’s screen, then held it to her ear. Barty heard it ring a few times, then Daniel picked up.

“Hey Dan, where are you guys? It’s been a while,” Maggie said.

Barty couldn’t make out Daniel’s reply, but it must have been positive, because Maggie snorted. “You spoil her, Dan.” A few more seconds of silence, then, “whatever tickles your fancy.”

Barty felt his tail starting to relax.

“No, hon, I said ‘tickles,’ we don’t need pickles!”

Barty snorted.

“Even the cat thinks you’re ridiculous! Dan? Dan, can you hear me?” Maggie looked at her phone’s screen briefly. “One bar, next to the window? Are you kidding me?” She held it back to her ear. “What’s that about the solar flares? Dan?”

The traitorous tail went full poof on him.

“Dan? Dammit, the call dropped.” Maggie rested a hand on Barty’s back. “Poor thing, did I scare you, yelling at that goof about pickles? You’re all fluffed up… Don’t worry, they’ll be home soon, though whether they bring pickles or not is a question for the ages…” Maggie settled back down on the couch, gently petting Barty, but he couldn’t get himself calmed down. He purred, nervously, for Maggie’s benefit, and to give himself something to focus on, trying to hold himself together. Breathe in, breathe out, vibrating like Maggie’s phone the whole time.

About a quarter of an hour later, Maggie’s phone rang, and the bottom of his world fell out.

“What do you mean Sadie’s gone?!”

 

***

 

“MRRHAE! S’RISSA!” Barty yowled, dashing down the street. “WHERE ARE YOU, I NEED YOU! NOW!”

“What?” S’rissa appeared in the window of her house.

“GET OUT HERE! NOW!” Barty must have been a frightful sight, fur standing on end due to anxiety.

“Brrthei, what?” Mrrhae asked, popping into existence next to him.

Barty was already so freaked out that he didn’t even blink when Mrrhae appeared, he just leaped onto the younger cat and growled in his face. “You have that Knowledge or Whispering or whatever the hell it’s called, and you said you can track down wizards with it. USE IT. WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT SADIE?”

“Brrthei! Calm down!” S’rissa tackled him off Mrrhae. “What’s going on?”

Barty rolled, and picked himself up. “Sadie’s… Gone…” He wheezed, trying to catch his breath.

Both of the other cats inhaled sharply. “Checking now,” Mrrhae said, tilting his head to the side, as if listening to something Barty couldn’t hear.

A few tense moments passed, then Mrrhae focused on Barty again. “She’s on her Ordeal.”

“Is she okay? What’s going on? Where is she?”

Mrrhae shook his head. “I can’t tell you any of that. Privacy reasons, you know? I don’t know. It just says she’s on Ordeal. Presumably, she’s alive, or it would say something else, but… I really don’t know beyond that.”

“That’s not good enough,” Barty ground out, tensing for another leap.

“Settle down,” S’rissa said, leaning over and licking Barty’s face. “Come on, you’re aggravating your breathing, just chill out.”

Barty didn’t want to calm down. Sadie was in danger! How could he be calm when Sadie was in danger?

But S’rissa kept licking him, and rubbed her cheek against his, and despite himself, he relaxed, a little.

“That’s it, just breathe. You’re okay. Don’t let your anxiety get the better of you again.”

“Go home to your humans, squish-face,” Mrrhae said, the nickname almost fond, reassuring. “We’ll come if anything changes, and they need you right now.”

Barty nodded, unable to find any words, and rose on shaky legs to make the long walk home.

 

***

 

A few days later, S’rissa and Mrrhae came to the window of Sadie’s bedroom. Barty had spent most of those days curled up on her bed, hoping she would come home safe. But when they approached, he could tell just by their posture what they were going to say. The answer to his prayers was: no.

No, Sadie was not coming home safe.

“She saved the stars,” S’rissa said, leaning into Barty as he cried into her fur. “She saved them, she was so brave, she fought the shadows and she _won,_ but the cost was her life.”

Mrrhae was uncharacteristically silent, merely supporting Barty on his other side and occasionally sniffling softly.

 

***

 

Maggie and Daniel worked tirelessly for weeks, searching for Sadie and any clues to her whereabouts. Every day that they woke from a fitful slumber, praying for their daughter to return, Barty felt worse and worse. He no longer slept on their bed, choosing instead to burrow under Sadie’s pillow, trying to breathe in her fading scent through his eternally wheezy nose, and falling asleep wishing he wouldn’t wake up in the morning. He always did, though, when he heard Daniel clumsily rattling the coffee mugs in the kitchen.

Part of him wished he could just tell them what had happened, and give them closure. Give them a chance to mourn, instead of clinging to false hope and cold trails. But, if he was honest with himself, that would mean admitting how badly he had screwed up.

Sadie trusted him enough to talk to him about her wizardry. He had made contact with the local wizards; he should have pushed them more to give her support. He should have gone up to the nearest Advisory or Senior or President or whatever the high ranking wizards were called and said “Hey! You guys can’t just let a five year old wizard run around with nothing but an wheezy cat for backup! Help!”

Instead of doing that, though, they had just reassured him and offered to fix his nose. He should have pushed them more to talk to her! If Sadie had just had a little more guidance, maybe she would have been able to come home. If she had someone with her when she went to the stars, or if he had stopped her from going entirely…

If he had snuck into the car and followed them to the library, or talked Sadie into staying another day, or told her to just throw that stupid book and twig away before she got hurt…

Barty threw back his head and yowled, screaming for all the pain and guilt in his heart. He could ponder ‘what ifs’ for the rest of his life, but it wouldn’t change the fact that Sadie was gone, and he could have done something about it, but he _hadn_ _’t._

Maggie heard him yowling, walked over, and knelt to pet him. He flinched when she laid her hand on his back, but held still. He wanted nothing more than to run and hide, or lash out and slap her hand away, but he knew that no matter how much he was hurting, Maggie had it worse. He couldn’t do that to her.

“You miss her too, huh, you poor thing…” Maggie murmured, stroking his back.

Yes, Barty missed Sadie. He missed the friend he had only known for a few months. But Maggie missed her daughter, and all of the years she would never get to spend with her, watching her grow up. Barty thought it wasn’t even right for her to be comforting him, given the amount of pain she must be in.

“We’ll find her, Barty. We have to.” Maggie knelt, wrapped her arms around Barty, and buried her face in his fur. Barty was reminded uncomfortably of that last night he had spent with Sadie, when she had sought comfort from him in much the same way.

 _That_ was why he didn’t run, or lash out, or even so much as twitch as Maggie cried into his fur. Even if it was his fault that Sadie was gone, even if they would probably toss him out into the street if they ever knew his part in Sadie’s disappearance, maybe he could still lend a tiny amount of comfort. Maybe he could balance out a microscopic part of the pain, simply by being a warm, furry object for Maggie and Daniel to hold in their grief.

He certainly couldn’t count himself as a proper part of the family any more, not when he didn't work hard enough to keep it from losing one member.

 

***

 

When the woman with a parakeet on her shoulder came to the door, Daniel shut Bartholomeow in the bathroom. That, of course, didn’t stop Barty from hopping up onto the kitchen table approximately ten minutes later and greeting the assembled humans and avian with a huffy meow. He had felt the fizz of wizardry around her when she entered, and could guess why she was there. He wasn’t about to miss out on that conversation.

Daniel made motions to shoo Barty away, but the woman held up a hand and said it was okay for him to stay. In return, Barty put on his best behavior. He lay on his side on the table in front of the woman (Irina, as she shortly introduced herself to him), and allowed the parakeet to hop on top of his head. It chirped a quiet greeting in his ear, and he made soft chattering noises in return.

Maggie and Daniel, by this point, were too flabbergasted by what Irina was saying to notice the bird sitting peacefully on their cat’s head.

“You can’t be serious,” Daniel said. “You can’t seriously be telling us that Sadie’s wizard book is real.”

Irina nodded. “It is real. Sadie was a wizard.”

“But magic isn’t real!”

“No, but wizardry is. And Sadie was a wizard. A powerful one.”

“You keep using the past tense,” Maggie said dully. “She’s really gone? How… How do you know?”

Irina opened her mouth to reply, but Daniel cut her off. “’Wizardry,’ I’m guessing.” He scoffed. “Look, I think you need to leave. Whatever your scam is, we’re not buying it, so just get out and let us go back to looking for our daughter.”

The parakeet chirped, annoyed.

Barty looked from Maggie and Daniel, to Irina. “They don’t believe you,” he said. The fizz of wizardry built to a buzz, and he could tell Irina was about to do some spell to prove it to them. “No, wait, please.”

Irina looked down at him, startled. “What is it?”

Maggie snorted. “Talking to the cat. Of course.”

“Look, just tell them… Tell them how they adopted me. There’s no way you can know that story unless I tell you.”

Irina nodded, and said to Maggie and Daniel, “He wants me to tell you the story of how you adopted him.”

Maggie and Daniel rolled their eyes, but Barty started talking, pausing every now and then to let Irina translate.

“I was just a kitten, and I have no idea how I ended up there, but I was stuck in a tire in an alley, and it was cold, and it was dark, and I had that great big bite on my side from a dog or something… And I don’t even know how you heard me yelling over the rain and thunder, but you came and you pulled me out, and you took me to the vet, and it was scary and smelled weird but he fixed me up, and I thought you were going to leave me there and I would never see you again. Why would the Universe be kind to me after everything I went through?

“But you took me home, and the first time you set me down on the carpet, I bolted and hid under the chair, and you had to lift it up to get me out to eat. So then I ran and hid in the cupboard with the toilet paper, and I got it all wrapped around myself by the time you came to fish me out. And I was so scared, I thought I was going to get in trouble, but you just untangled me and petted me and fed me and held me.”

Maggie and Daniel were staring at Irina and Barty in shock. The parakeet fluttered its wings, but remained silent.

“You took me in when I had nothing, and you’ve loved me ever since, and I love you back, so that’s why I’m saying this: Listen to Irina. Wizardry is real, I’ve seen it, I’ve seen Sadie do it. Please, listen to her.” Barty fell silent, or as silent as he could be under the fresh wave of anxiety that assaulted him. He had just given the longest speech of his life, and to his humans, at that. He wheezed softly as Maggie and Daniel tried to collect themselves.

“Our cat is talking to us,” Maggie said.

“Yup,” Daniel replied.

Irina broke the silence. “Sadie left a message for you,” she said softly. “A message in a bottle, of sorts. It was addressed to me, with instructions to deliver it personally to you.”

“Why you?” Daniel asked. “Who are you, that Sadie knew you?”

“I’m in her book,” Irina said. “It would have had a listing of local wizards, so she went to the top of the list, looking for someone important, and there I was.”

Barty made a soft keening noise that had the parakeet chirping worriedly at him. _Oh, of all the times for Sadie to finally talk to a grownup!_

Irina drew out her own book, far thicker than Sadie’s, opened it to a bookmarked page, and drew a bottle of woven light out of the paper.

“Oh. Message in a bottle. I see,” Maggie said.

Irina held the glowing bottle out to them, and Daniel took it, cautiously. “What do I…?”

“The cork.”

Daniel’s hand was shaking as he pulled the cork free, and Sadie’s voice filled the room.

“Hi Mommy, hi Daddy, hi Barty,” Sadie’s voice said, echoing a bit. “I’m sorry, I guess I wasn’t as good as Natalie and Kyle. I can stop the shadow monsters, but I don’t think I’m coming home. You’ll be safe, though…”

Maggie made a strangled sound, and put her hand on Daniel’s arm, where it was frozen, still holding the cork of light.

“… and Irina will make sure this gets to you. She’s a really important wizard! I know she’ll do it! Wizards always do the right thing!” Sadie was silent for a moment. “That’s why I did this, why I had to save the stars. It was the right thing, and I was the only one who could. I had to, because I’m a wizard. I’ll miss you guys. I love you!” Her voice trailed off, and the bottle’s glow dimmed.

Daniel mechanically recorked the bottle.

“That will,” Irina paused, composed herself, “that will replay if you open it again. If you want to hear her voice again. I’ve modified it so it will stay active, even though you’re nonwizards.”

Maggie nodded, mute.

Barty could only moan.

 

***

 

Two weeks later, and Sadie’s message was still echoing in Barty’s head. Even without Maggie and Daniel uncorking the bottle at least once a day, her words were haunting. “I’m sorry,” she had said, as if it was Sadie who had failed Barty, instead of the other way around.

Mrrhae and S’rissa stopped by a few times to check on him, and S’rissa offered the medical wizardry for his worsening breathing again, but he declined, and waved them off, and returned to his hiding places under the furniture.

He was under the couch when the thunderstorm rolled in, with great booming peals of thunder and blinding flashes of lighting that had Maggie and Daniel nervously checking their flashlight batteries.

They opened the front door to secure the screen door, which was flapping in the wind, and Barty could not say why he did it, but he ran, slipping past Daniel when a gust flung the doors wide.

He ran as fast as his legs would take him, out into the storm, like he hadn’t run since he was a kitten. The wind whipped at his fur and the rain pelted him, soaking him to the bone. Distantly, he heard Maggie and Daniel calling after him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Time wasn’t fading the pain; he just had to be out of that house, away from the memories of Sadie, and how badly he had failed her.

He didn’t know if he would come back or not, he just knew he couldn’t stay any longer.

Barty gasped for air, feeling like his lungs couldn’t get enough no matter how hard he breathed, and he got a mouthful of rainwater with every inhalation. Almost as an afterthought, he wondered if it was possible to drown in the rain. His legs started burning, and he slowed, only then taking the time to look at his surroundings instead of just the wet pavement beneath his paws. He had no idea where he was.

The rain got colder, but Barty didn’t seek shelter. He just walked, aimlessly, mind full of roiling shadows and aching guilts.

There was another blinding flash of lightning, but this time, something caught his attention. The stark silhouette of a dog at the end of the block, looking right at him.

Barty’s tail couldn’t go poof in the rain, but that was no consolation at all as the dog started trotting towards him. He turned and ran, wheezing, hoping that his abused lungs would carry him to safety. He knew that if the dog caught him, he would not get a second chance today like he did when he was a kitten.

An alley opened up to the side of him, and he dashed down it, only to realize his mistake: it was a dead end. He came to a stop just short of the brick wall, gulped, and turned to meet his fate, eyes open.

Bartholomeow Whiskers von Reynolds was not going to die a coward.

The dog advanced, incredibly menacing despite the fact that it was as soaked as he was.

When it was a few feet away, Barty couldn’t take it any more. He closed his eyes, and waited for the end. _Sorry, Sadie._

Bartholomeow Whiskers von Reynolds was going to die a coward. He was a terrible coward, and a terrible friend, and he couldn’t keep Sadie safe, and…

He was being licked by a warm, slobbery tongue.

Barty cracked an eye open, and the dog was sitting in front of him, bent down to his level, no longer looking menacing. “Hi,” it said, and it was a she, and she didn’t sound mean. She sounded friendly. “Are you lost?”

Barty squeaked. Between his fear, confusion, and oxygen situation, that was about all he could manage.

“My bosses are wizards, c’mon, you can warm up there and wait out the storm!” The dog’s tail wagged, sending waves of water through the surrounding puddles. “I’m Annie, I’ll take you there!”

Annie didn’t wait for a response before nosing under Barty’s belly and rolling him onto her back, then setting off for her home.

Barty could only cling to her fur, dazed and confused.

A few blocks passed in silence. Annie didn’t so much as flinch when another flash of lightning and thunder caused Barty to dig his claws into her back. “Almost there,” she said cheerfully.

She turned a corner into an unremarkable house, went up the driveway, and scratched at the front door. Barty shivered on her back. He noticed the rain had stopped at some point, but it was only a small consolation when he was already soaked to the bone.

A few moments later, the door opened, and a human said in the Speech, “Annie! There you are! Where were you! What’s that on your back?”

“I found him, Boss. He needs you.”

“Hi,” Barty squeaked.

“Oh, Powers That Be in a rain barrel, get inside you two! You’re soaked! What happened? Carl! Get some towels! A lot of them! Annie brought a guest!”

After that, the world was a blur of fluffy towels and gentle hands and soft words (“Oh dear–” “Is he–” “Be careful–” “Is that warm enough–”), and Barty let himself just slip away a little bit until he was significantly less wet and nestled in a pile of dry towels that smelled a bit like wet dog. Of course, everything in the house, including Barty, smelled a bit like wet dog at the moment, courtesy of the very soggy sheepdog that had hauled him there.

The first human, the one that had opened the door, crouched down in front of Barty. Barty could not meet his eyes.

“Hey there,” the human said softly.

“Mmf,” Barty managed.

“I’m Tom, that’s Carl, and you’ve already met Annie.”

“Barty.”

“Hi Barty,” Tom’s voice was infuriatingly gentle. “Sorry if Annie gave you a scare, she’s always bringing home strays.”

Barty snorted, and wheezed a little.

“How’d you two end up so soaked?” Carl asked, from where he was applying a third towel to the still-damp Annie.

“Rain.”

“Huh?” Carl looked up. “It's not rained here for a few weeks.”

“I beg to differ,” Barty said, and sneezed.

“It was raining where I found him, boss,” Annie said, leaning into Carl's toweling a bit.

“Uh huh. And where was that?”

“Somewhere wet.”

Carl looked at Tom. “Well, she's not wrong.”

Tom chuckled. “We should let his family know we've got him, so they don't worry. Maybe they can come get him, if they're near the city.”

“The city's pretty far,” Barty said. “They complain when they have to drive to Augusta.”

Tom blinked. “Wait, what? I meant Manhattan.”

“Wait, where?” Barty's tail was dry enough to puff out a bit, though the fur was still slightly droopy from the lingering dampness.

"New York."

"Okay I'm admittedly kind of fuzzy on human geography, but I'm pretty sure your dog didn't just carry me four hundred miles."

“Barty, where are you from?” Tom asked slowly.

“Maine.”

Carl paused in his toweling and stared at Annie. Tom stared at her too. Barty just glanced between each of them in turn.

“Okaaaaaaaaay,” Carl said, and tossed the towel into the pile of damp ones that had accrued.

“I found him, boss!” Annie said, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth.

“We can see that, Annie. _How?_ ”

"Really?” Tom said, incredulous. “A kid's dog pulled the 'spell it backwards' joke on us recently and you're wondering how _ours_ brought a cat from Maine? Be thankful Barty's from the same time zone, let alone the same planet." Tom pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long sigh. "Okay, okay. We will deal with the interstate cat teleportation in the morning. Carl, go give our walking Star Trek transporter her dinner, will you?"

After Annie had her dinner, Tom found a blowdryer somewhere and chased the last of the dampness from Barty's coat, then gave him a little nest of blankets on the couch. It was nice. He felt warm and safe.

“So, Barty, why were you out in the rain?” Carl asked.

“I ran.”

“What was chasing you?” Annie asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Guilt.” Barty curled up and hid his face. He didn’t deserve to be warm and safe. Not when Sadie wasn’t around to be warm and safe ever again. “Why am I here?”

“Because you needed us,” Tom said.

“Don’t need anyone,” Barty mumbled. “Shoulda left me in the rain. ‘S what I deserve.”

“I rather doubt that anyone deserves that.”

“I do.”

Carl mumbled something to Annie, and she padded over to Barty and sniffed his head for a moment, making him wince. “Go ‘way,” he mumbled.

“Sorry, boss’s orders,” she said, and proceeded to give his head a giant lick.

“Hey!”

Another lick, this time to the side of his face, and before he could protest, the next one went down his back. “Hey, stop it! That tickles! Hey!”

“Sorry kitty,” Annie said between licks. “The bossman said to.”

“Well tell the bossman to stop it!”

“That’s enough, Annie,” Tom said, and the infernal licking stopped.

Barty extricated himself from the nest of blankets and shook himself from head to toe. “Bleugh, I smell like dog slobber.”

“Sounds like the least of your worries,” Tom commented.

Barty snorted again. “Understatement of the year, that.” He glanced up at Tom, then away; he couldn’t meet Tom’s gaze. “You’re wizards, right?”

“Sure are; area Seniors, in fact,” Carl said.

“I screwed up,” Barty said, and he started shaking and couldn’t stop, crying into the blankets. Annie came over and laid next to him. “Did you… Do you know about Sadie Reynolds?”

Tom and Carl nodded. “Yeah,” Tom said. “We got notified after… After she finished her Ordeal.”

Carl shook his head. “Heck of a thing, that. We’re still trying to wrap our heads around it.”

“She was my family’s kid,” Barty said, and shook harder.

“Oh,” said Tom, and the sympathy in his voice was a knife, stabbing into Barty’s soul.

Annie whined, and adjusted her position next to him so she could lay her chin on his back.

“I think it was my fault,” Barty mumbled into the blankets. “I couldn’t help her, I couldn’t stop her. I…”

The story came tumbling out: Sadie finding wizardry, his inability to convince her to talk to anyone about it, the Ordeal that killed her. Barty’s voice slowly escalated in volume as he told it, until finally… “I wish she had never found that stupid book in the first place!” Barty screamed. “Then she’d still be here, and Maggie and Daniel wouldn’t be heartbroken, and everything would be fine instead of upside down and inside out!” _And I would maybe still deserve to be here too,_ he thought, but didn’t say.

Carl let out a slow breath, and seemed to be about to say something, but Barty didn’t give him a chance.

“She went to her death! She thought she was just going to have a fun adventure like her book about shadow monsters and she _died.”_ Barty wiggled out from under Annie’s chin and rounded on Carl. “And where were you? Aren’t you supposed to look out for young wizards? She was alone! She was scared! She was five!”

Carl winced. “We don’t know.”

“What do you _mean_ you don’t know?”

“We don’t know how she slipped through the cracks!” Carl’s voice broke. “You’re right, by all means, we should have been there! It was entirely Sadie’s choice to become a wizard, but she _shouldn’t_ have had to do it alone!”

Tom cut in, pained. “As far as we can tell, we never received the notification. Usually, if someone that young takes the Oath, we’ll get notified automatically, so we can step in and provide a little guidance. But it never showed up, and we never even knew Sadie existed until her death notice appeared.”

Barty growled. “Are you telling me that Sadie died because of some _cosmic computer glitch?”_

Behind him, Annie whined.

“I’m telling you we just don’t know!” Carl pulled a gigantic book out of thin air and flipped through it. “There’s nothing wrong with the system, not that we’ve been able to tell, and we’ve been waiting on clearance to dig a little deeper and trace all of the threads related to Sadie. Find out where that message went, if anywhere.”

Barty opened his mouth to make a cutting remark about how disappointing it was that the Powers That Be were on the same level as Comcast tech support, when Carl’s manual chimed, and the juxtaposition of the sound coming from a paper book was enough to give him pause.

“Was that?” Tom asked, eyes widening. “Can’t be.”

Carl flipped through a few pages. “It came through,” he said, awed.

“Well isn’t that just the most wonderful timing,” Barty said sarcastically.

“There are no coincidences,” Carl muttered, examining his book. “I… We may actually have an answer for you in a moment.”

Tom stood up and moved to peer over Carl’s shoulder. “Oh. Oh dear.” He turned back to Barty, looking pained. “There was no glitch or error. The system worked exactly the way it was supposed to.”

“What?!”

Carl closed his eyes. “Sadie took the Oath in front of her mother. It didn’t register outside intervention as necessary.”

“But, she thought it was just a kid’s book! She didn’t know Sadie would get wizardry!”

“We know.”

Tom muttered something under his breath. Barty didn’t have to know what language it was to recognize a curse. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

“Finally! We’re on the same page!” Barty’s words were cutting, but he didn’t care. “Fine! So it’s not you I need to be angry with, it’s those idiot Powers That Be! Oh, what I wouldn’t give to swat the lot of them upside the head!”

“The only Power responsible for this is the one that invented Death,” Tom said tiredly. “You want to hit It, be my guest, but I don’t think there’s anything to be gained from smacking the ones that hand out wizardry. In the end, the Lone Power is the reason Sadie died.”

Finally, Barty had his answer to the great question 'why did all these terrible things happen?' Death was invented, and their stupid wizard books didn't work right. Lovely. With that, the fight abruptly drained out of him. “I’m tired. Tired of hurting, tired of fighting.” He curled up next to Annie again. “I just want to wake up from this nightmare and see Sadie laying next to me, fine, like she ought to be.”

“I’m sorry,” Carl said.

“But, you know… There’s a lot of people who _do_ get to wake up tomorrow,” Tom said. “Five trillion beings are living their lives in peace because of Sadie. That's not nothing.”

“Why couldn’t it have been five trillion and one?” Barty sniffled. “It’s not fair.”

“If Life was always fair, there wouldn’t be wizards in the first place.”

 

***

 

Sadie’s official funeral had long since come and gone, but Tom and Carl and Mrrhae and S’rissa arranged a memorial, to allow more people an opportunity to pay their respects. Barty was surprised by how many showed up — humans; cats; dogs; lizards; an emu; a few mobile trees; and a number of humanoid beings that looked a little fuzzy around the edges (Barty suspected that they were probably disguised with wizardry).

All in all, it was a pretty amazing turnout for one five year old girl.

Barty didn’t process much of the actual memorial service. Some wizards who saw what Sadie did for the star spoke, as did a representative of one of the saved planets, then Maggie and Daniel, who were practically clinging to Tom and Carl and looking incredibly out of place in the crowd.

 _They finally get closure,_ Barty thought. _They got their entire world turned upside down, they found out wizardry is real, and they are dazed and confused, but they get closure. Maybe they can start to heal._

Barty wasn’t standing with Maggie and Daniel, he was off to the side. He still couldn’t bring himself to go home. Tom and Carl were graciously allowing him to stay with them, sleeping next to Annie at night and roaming the neighborhood in the morning. He watched the wizards come and go from their house, once glimpsing a couple of teenagers that were dead ringers for the pictures of Natalie and Kyle from the book. It hurt to look at them, so he hid with Annie until they left.

The guilt still gnawed at him. Tom and Carl and the rest were helping him to work through his grief, and there was a small but growing part of him that knew there was nothing else he could have done, and was starting to accept it.

That small part was at constant war with the part that insisted Sadie’s death was all his fault, and he should have tried harder, and the world would be better off if he was not in it any more.

The one time he expressed that latter sentiment aloud, Annie sat on him for an hour until he promised to live, for Sadie’s sake. “She wouldn’t want to see you hurt yourself,” Annie had said, carefully holding her posture to keep from squishing him. “She was strong. Be strong too.”

Sitting here, watching the memorial wind down, it was hard to be strong. He tried to speak, to say some words about Sadie as everyone else had, but they caught in his throat. Finally, he croaked “The butterflies loved her, and so did I,” and he fled and hid under a bush until everyone left.

“Barty, if you’re still here, please know, you can come home when you’re ready,” Maggie called softly, when she and Daniel were leaving. “Take the time you need to heal, but you can always come home.” They left.

Barty waited a while, then crawled out from under the bush, shook a leaf off of his head, and went to sit in front of the memorial. It was a simple stone, engraved and polished, spelled to show its markings only to wizards and a few designated nonwizards. A few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have included himself in that latter category of people privileged enough to be allowed to visit Sadie’s memorial. Today, though, he felt that maybe he could be a little kinder to himself.

A shadow fell over him, and he was so exhausted and emotionally drained that it didn’t even occur to him to startle when he saw it was a large golden retriever. He just sighed, and said, “Please don’t lick me. I get enough of that from Annie.”

“Okay,” the golden said, and sat next to Barty.

They sat in silence for a while. Barty couldn’t tear his eyes from the writing on the stone.

 

_Sadie Madeline Reynolds_

_2010-2015_

 

And below the name and date was a simple carved knot; Tom had called it a Wizard’s Knot.

Finally, the golden retriever spoke again. “Your breathing sounds better,” he said.

“Yeah,” Barty said, still focused on the stone. “I let S’rissa do… Something. I didn’t think I deserved it, but I think it made her feel better to help. She always looks so sad when she looks at me.” Barty blinked, then turned to look at the golden retriever. “Wait, hang on. Do I know you? How do you know about my breathing problems?”

The golden smiled a doggy smile. “Oh, I have my ways.” And then briefly, his coat wasn’t just golden, but _golden and metallic and glowing,_ shining with light from within, and a tingle of not just wizardry, but an impossible amount of power raced over Barty’s skin.

Then, He was just an ordinary looking dog again, wagging His tail slightly.

“Oh,” Barty said. He was rather proud of how well he kept his composure, given that there was apparently one of the Powers That Be sitting next to him in a dog suit.

He was not sure if he regretted the time he said he wanted to swat the Powers for what they did to Sadie, or if he was in a mood to follow through on the threat. He settled for polite small talk, instead. “Hi. I’m Barty.”

“I’m Ponch. Nice to meet you.”

Ponch. A Power named Ponch. What a Universe.

“We do the best we can for them,” Ponch said, looking at the stone again. “Our humans; our wizards. We try to protect them, but sometimes they leave, or we leave.”

“I don’t like it,” Barty said, wishing he had more eloquent words to say.

“Neither do I,” Ponch admitted, sadly. “I miss the boss. But I had to do what I had to do, and he keeps on keeping on.”

Despite himself, despite all the pain, Barty was amused. He had always pictured Powers as lofty, incorporeal beings, and here One was, wagging Its tail slowly, drooling a bit, and speaking in the same manner as any other dog he had ever met. He said as much.

“There’s no use trying to be anything other than what I am,” Ponch said. “If I stopped being a dog, I wouldn’t be good for taking care of dog stuff. I wouldn’t be able to protect my people. I always did that: protecting my family. My family’s just a lot bigger now.”

“And mine’s smaller,” Barty whispered.

Ponch whined. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I let her down.”

Ponch shook himself. “Sorry, I have to break my promise, I gotta lick you.” And he did, a few quick swipes across Barty’s head. “You’re being silly, I had to lick you.”

Somehow, Barty didn’t mind. He wasn’t sure if he was just used to it from Annie, or if it just felt different, coming from a Power.

“You didn’t let her down, Barty. She made a Choice, and it was hers to make. We do what we can for our humans, but they have to make their choices themselves. That’s why they’re them, and we’re us.” Ponch trailed off, and looked up at the cloudy sky. Barty got the impression that he was looking at something a lot farther away than Earth’s atmosphere.

“You did so much for Sadie,” Ponch continued. “She had you to talk to about wizardry, and her fears, and you encouraged her to grow and develop. You’re as much a hero as she is. Those five trillion lives Sadie saved? You saved them too. There are planets that will sing of Sadie and Bartholomeow.”

Barty rolled his eyes, fighting the conflicted feelings rising in his chest. “I never did shed on Daniel’s suit for giving me that stupid name.”

“It suits you, though,” Ponch said. “You can still shed on his suit, that’s your choice, but I like it.”

Ponch stood, and shook out his beautiful golden coat again.

Barty mirrored the action, though he knew he looked far less majestic in doing so.

Ponch stared down at him, and for a moment, when Barty met his eyes, he saw vast reaches of space in those warm, dark eyes. “Thank you, Barty. For helping Sadie. And for everything else, too. You’ve gone through so much, more than anyone should. Thank you.”

Barty’s throat closed up, and he couldn’t reply, so he just nodded.

Ponch turned, and took a step, and was gone. There was no displaced air, like with other wizards. He just stepped off of one plane of existence and into another.

Barty turned back to look at the stone. He didn’t feel like a hero, and he didn’t feel like he ought to have been thanked by a Power.

He supposed that time would heal, just as everyone said. Today, though, all he could think was that he finally had a proper reason for that small, nameless ache at the bottom of his soul. 

**Author's Note:**

> Eternal thanks to the lovely [fulldaysdrive](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fulldaysdrive/pseuds/fulldaysdrive) for being my beta. Without her, I would not be able to inflict pain and feels upon you all nearly as effectively.


End file.
